Take Note

Grammy win

The principal and music directors from an Iowa high school will be
hobnobbing in Los Angeles this week with the Grammy Award nominees.

As part of a program of the National Academy of Recording Arts and
Sciences started this year, Valley High School in West Des Moines has
been chosen as having the best high school music program in the
nation.

Phil Peters, the chairman of the music program at the 2,300-student
school, said he believes his school is being honored in part because of
some of its special music projects. For instance, the music department
regularly commissions and students perform new works by composers. And
in the past couple of years, the school has put on operas, which, as
Mr. Peters notes, is unusual for a high school.

Selected from an initial pool of 14,000 schools, Valley High was one
of 16 finalists for the top National Grammy Signature School award that
received cash awards of $5,000 each.

Mr. Peters said the school will receive its award at a nominees'
banquet the day before the Feb. 24 telecast of the awards ceremony. But
it won't be an actual Grammy trophy, he said.

The district spends $426,000 each year on its lone high school's
music program, including salaries for 10 staff members.

Double duty

Many teachers donate their time and energy to the schools where they
work or to their communities. But about half the teachers in a small
Pennsylvania town are going one step further and donating part of their
paychecks, too.

Forty-six teachers from the 1,350-student Meyersdale district, about
100 miles south of Pittsburgh, agreed to have $5 deducted from their
checks every two weeks for the Meyersdale Public Library. Meyersdale
teachers earn an average of $37,000 a year, below the state average of
about $47,500.

Residents recently voted down two referendums that would have raised
taxes to support the operations of the 28,000-volume library. As a
result, local teachers formed Project TEACH, which stands for Teachers
Empowering a Community's Hope, to raise $5,000 a year for the
library.

Although the program has garnered tremendous support from the
community, residents just don't want their taxes raised, explained
Stephen Smerbeck, the president of the Meyersdale Area Education
Association and an English teacher at Meyersdale Junior-Senior High
School.